Winnipeg’s 2025 Budget is proof that annual property tax increases are not not sufficient to meet the fiscal challenge before the city, MHCA President & CEO Chris Lorenc told the Public Works Committee January 16.
Lorenc told the Committee, at its review of Budget 2025’s funding for public works, that the additional 2.45% tax increase (total 5.95%) on property owners “is frankly a commendable demonstration of restraint, given the challenges that have been compounding each year.
“It is however, staving off undoubtedly harder decisions to come.”
Lorenc stressed that, flowing from that, “this budget – our collective conundrum – illustrates the undeniable need for a fundamental change in the revenue streams to which the city has access, to enable its ability to sustainably fund the delivery of critical core municipal services – think New Fiscal Deal.”
The MHCA, for years, has recommended the City enter into discussions with the provincial government to open new revenue sources, including growth taxes, to see sufficient revenues for the growing demands placed on existing, along with new, services.
He noted that the 2025 Budget resorts to creative solutions to get sufficient revenue to the operating budget. In 2027, the Budget proposes, revenues of the 2% annual tax hike, which are dedicated to the local and regional street renewal reserve, will be shifted to the operating budget. The loss in revenue to street renewal will be replaced with equal amount of cash from the Provincial Strategic Infrastructure Fund.
Lorenc said the Committee and Council has to deal with a funding model for street renewal that can meet the actual need of the transportation network. No asset management projection offered by the City has yet to show how funding will allow the street network, in its entirety, to be brought to good condition, he said.
MHCA recommended that the City initiate a working group to study a new funding model for the local and regional street renewal program; update the condition and needs assessment of the existing system, along with a service-level expectation of our local and regional roads; and, press the provincial government to engage in New Fiscal Deal discussions.
To read Lorenc’s full presentation, click here.
Click here to see Lorenc’s presentation January 16, 2024.
